Posts Tagged ‘innovation’

Hello all! Happy New Year to all of you! Now that the holidays are over we can really get moving (or I can really get moving) 😉

Every year as January begins, I find myself really digging into the year. I love it because it’s like the first days of school again, except that everyone knows the routines already! They aren’t always followed, but they are known!

As a private school, our Open Houses are early in the school year as we have to plan for enrollment and tuition for our budget next year. January is full-swing Open House planning. Our Open House is February 4, and I don’t think I’ve felt so busy.

The great thing about Open House planning is that it makes me really sit back and think about marketing for my school. WHY should people send their children to my school. WHY should they pay money when they can send them to public school for free? WHAT do we have to offer? WHAT is it that makes our school so unique?

I love my building. I feel that we have built something amazing, and I am so proud of it. I have to make sure everyone else sees that, too. I have created lists, solicited suggestions and comments from parents, alumni, current students, teachers, community members. They all have something to share and every time I hear a new comment it makes my chest stick out just a little bit more.

What is it that makes YOUR school amazing? What do YOU have to offer your community? What is happening in your school that the whole world should know? Let’s take January to brainstorm with our mentor/mentee groups on what you have, and how to share it! It is ALWAYS the perfect time to share how amazing your school, teachers, and students are.

I have added a few resources that may help you in your discussions from many in my #PLN who are masters at telling their schools’ stories and branding. Happy chatting!

“Innovation” is the big buzz word in education, and rightfully so. People are looking at doing things “different and better”, and we should be exploring different practices to help focus on “what is best for kids”. One of these practices that many people have explored is Google’s “20% time”, although that program has recently been ended.

Even “innovative practices” can become stagnant and sometimes only serve a short term purpose, but there are multiple roads to how you can be innovative. Jamie Notter explores this in his most recent blog post:

Folks, were you really implementing 20% time just because Google was doing it? Or because you read about it on a blog, or heard about it in a speech? Why on earth would you copy something that someone else is doing without understanding why that practice makes sense to you and your organization?! And while I’m on the subject, can I please throw that question in front of you as you debate whether or not to become more like Steve Jobs and Apple and have everything tightly controlled by a single visionary (those articles bug me too)? See my post the other week about the evil of best practices. Google was decentralized in its innovation, and now it is apparently centralizing it a bit. Does that mean Jobs was right? No. It just means innovation is important, there isn’t one single path, and it’s up to you to figure out how to do it.

So here are some questions for you that you can either blog about, or respond to in the comments section.

How do you go about creating innovative practices in your schools?

How do you know if they are making a difference?

How are they revisited to ensure that they have the same impact that they once had before?

Just some ideas of things that I wanted to throw your way this week. Hope everyone is having a great month of September!